A Hard Day’s Night: Remixed (Prof. Stoned, v1.0)

The Beatles - A Hard Day's Night: Remixed [Prof. Stoned 2022]
16bit/44.1kHz CD Quality FLAC

01. A Hard Day's Night
02. I Should Have Know Better
03. If I Fell
04. I'm Happy Just To Dance With You
05. And I Love Her
06. Tell Me Why
07. Can't Buy Me Love
08. Any Time At All
09. I'll Cry Instead
10. Things We Said Today
11. When I Get Home
12. You Can't Do That
13. I'll Be Back

Bonus:
14. Long Tall Sally
15. I Call Your Name
16. Slow Down
17. Matchbox

Total time: 39m19s

Stereo Mixes & Mastering: Prof. Stoned (June 2022)

v1.0: 01-07-2022

Original credits:

John Lennon – vocals; acoustic, rhythm and lead guitars; piano; harmonica
Paul McCartney – vocals; bass guitar; piano; cowbell
George Harrison – vocals; lead (six- and twelve-string) and acoustic guitars
Ringo Starr – drums, percussion, vocal on 'Matchbox'

Additional personnel

George Martin – piano, production,
Norman Smith – engineering and mixing
Tony Barrow – cover notes
Robert Freeman – cover photograph

Tech. note:

Disclaimer: this album was recorded on 4-track but this mix was made from the original stereo mix.

So why bother, you ask?

It's a fair question. I started working on this just to see what I could do with it*. I realize many fans are happy with the original stereo version and this is an experiment that may not be for them but I certainly feel justified in sharing this. It is an 'updated' version which perhaps has more of a ballsier feel than the originals. I expect there will be an official remix of this in the future. It'll be interesting to see how this holds up against it.

All tracks (or stems) have been derived from the stereo mixes by spectral extraction. The original stereo mixes generally have the backing track panned hard left, the vocal track centered and assorted overdubs panned hard right and center. This separation helps the extraction program deliver clean results with hardly any bleed-over between the stems. The main problem encountered with the source material is the built-in compression which was applied during the mixdown. Two songs in particular were difficult to salvage: Tell me Why and I'll be Back. The vocals on those tracks were mixed much louder than the band and the compressor pushes the sound of the band to the back whenever the vocal gets loud. The latter track still has come out quite good; somehow the program managed to extract guitar bits that can hardly be heard on the original and I tediously brought those bits up manually, almost note by note.

I always thought the mono version of this record was superior, but I'm not so sure of that anymore. The stereo mix has better fidelity and also better low-end, it just sounds a bit untogether at times. There is too much space between the band and vocals, to my taste. This version aims to correct that without losing the beautiful recording quality. Hope you like it.

(* And I had another reason: to me this is their best album. It's pure pop perfection; every track is a winner. It's the album that elevated them from great to brilliant. The group were probably at their tightest at this point and Lennon was on top of his game. I find his lyrics endearing here. They have a directness and emotional charge that vanished later on.)

Sources: the 2009 USB files, 1 [CD, 2000] (first 17 secs of Tr. 01) & The Capitol Albums Vol. 1 [4CD, 2004] (first 6 secs of Tr. 06)

I have used the following digital studio gear and monitoring in the making of this:

- DeMix Pro 3.0.1
- Cubase
- Universal Audio UAD-2 Satellite Quad-Core (incl. various extra plugins I purchased over the years)
- PMC IB2s & iLoud Micro monitors
- Adobe Audition